By Dusty Sonnenberg, CCA, Ohio Field Leader: a project of the Ohio Soybean Council and soybean checkoff
Soybean farmers in both the United States and Canada, strive to constantly achieve higher yields. Horst Bohner has been the soybean specialist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture for 20 years. In that time, he has studied factors impacting soybean yield in a number of growing environments and field conditions.
“Yield potential is not held back as much by heat units and day length and water as I used to think,” Bohner said. “We used to say that yield was made in August, that if you got a lot of rain then you would get a big crop. But over the years, I have seen that if you have the right year, with the right additives, and the right management, we can get some incredible yields.”
Bohner has pondered the question, “What is the fundamental difference between a part of a field that yields 50 bushels per acre (bu/ac) and a part of a field that yields 100 bu/ac?”